"Purple pushing" can be dangerous to the baby, as it decreases its oxygen intake. Just like that hyper-pant breathing taught in Lamaze classes.
Most women, when allowed to push uninhibited, push several times during each contraction. They gulp in some air, bear down, breathe deep again, bear down until they need more air... etc. Some women don't get the urge to push, or their bodies give them a nice rest between their labor's transition and the pushing phase, then the contractions and the urge to bear down occurs.
The uterus will get the baby out, whether one pushes or not. But the majority of women can't help BUT push when they're unmedicated.... it's an uncontrollable reflex that also seems to decrease the pain of the contraction.

It is pretty intense to see alot of hospital-based pushing that is so forced...things get all high-energy, people are really coaching and things get hectic

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i was sure before my hospital birth i would not be pushing,in a forced way.i wanted to listen to my body and do olnly what felt right and my midwife agreed

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i don't think that you need to push that strenously. i think that docs get you doing that because they want you to get the baby out asap! the faster she comes, the less they think they have to worry about

I love it when other people tell my story! The pushing was where my home-birth-transferred-to-the-hospital-birth broke down & one of the things I am least satisfied with in my memories. I really wanted to push instinctively, had even printed off a lovely article about pushing for 1st time moms by Gloria LeMay (sorry I can't find the link) But I think most of what my MW was doing in the hospital was trying to prevent the hospital staff from getting interventive & her main way to do that was for me to have the baby ASAP.

I didn't ever feel an "urge" to push, I just felt my uterus start pushing! It was so strong, it sat me up in bed at the end of the contraction, felt like my uterus was turning upside down to me. The dry heave analogy is a good one. Then they "checked" me & said I was complete & go ahead. We moved around from bed to bathroom some & he descended quite a bit. Then back to bed (for the Fetal heart monitor's sake) & I birthed Griffin 55 minutes later surrounded by the "cheer squad"~ they were so noisy! But I was not in any condition to shut them up. Now I have lots of feelings of losing myself to all of them & rushed by them. I really wish I had been left alone. Maybe next time
thanks for this thread, Maria